February 21st, 2015

Today I’m going to go on a mini-rant for a moment. Thanks for bearing with me …

More times than I can remember, I’ve been talking with an aspiring artist about the process of recording, and they’ll assert that their vision and priority for their record is that “it has to sound like my live show.”

I just want to take a moment to say: that’s totally not true. Who said that? There isn’t a rule anywhere about that. Especially because your live show is probably just you and an acoustic guitar. And that would be a boring-ass record. Second most boring: you and your acoustic guitar at the front and center of a minimal guitar-bass-drums arrangement. I’m sure you know great players. But everyone’s heard that record about a thousand times. And we don’t need to hear it yet again.

Unless you’re making a live record, “I want my record to sound like my live show” is an apples-to-oranges comparison. A recording is an opportunity to write your feelings on a large screen. It’s a chance to use a much bigger and more ambitious sonic palette than you would have access to in a typical live situation. (See also my previous post on differentiating yourself in the marketplace via sonic adventuresomeness.) And, most importantly, it’s a chance to make a statement.

And, really, do you want that statement to be, “I have such a low opinion of my audience that I want to make sure they can connect the dots between my live performance and my recorded output in the most reductive, literal, obvious way possible?” Geez, I’d hope not.

Give your audience a little credit. And give them a treat when they take your record home. Take them on an adventure. Give them something special to form a bond with, not a reconstruction of what they just heard you do on stage. Take the conversation to the next level.

Rant over. If you have a recording you’ve made recently that has adventurous leanings, find me on Facebook at the link above and share it with me; I’d love to hear it!

February 11th, 2015

When I’m considering working with a new artist, I generally suggest that we do one song together first to see whether the relationship works. So in this spirit, last month I had a singer-songwriter come by the house. There was something in this woman’s writing and voice that really resonated with me, and that I thought I could contribute something positive to.

She came over and played me a bunch of songs, and we picked one to start with. What I typically do next is to demo up some production ideas in the computer, to get the conversation started. But before that, it’s important for me to get a sense of what the artist is hearing in their head production-wise. Especially when an artist has started a song with just an acoustic guitar, it could go in any one of a dozen directions.

So I had her play me some inspiration tracks in Spotify. I had been hearing a Beth Orton sort of thing for her material; she played me Meiko and Lucy Rose. Which, if you think about it, are pretty compatible vision-wise with my Beth Orton idea: a tightly produced balance of acoustic instruments, electronic instruments, and drum programming.

So based on that, I got started on a production template. I did an acoustic drum kit and upright bass in the verses, and then brought in some drum machines and synth bass to make a dark scene change into the choruses. Then I had the artist over to start fleshing it out.

And she hated it. Hated it! She had a viscerally negative reaction, specifically to the drum machines and synthesizers. Which, of course, were directly cued from her inspiration tracks. So I probed on that point, asking whether it was the parts the electronic instruments were doing, or perhaps the sounds I’d chosen. But no, it was the very fact of their existence. “My sound is folky-jazzy,” she said by way of explanation.

Huh.

I have two thoughts here. The first one is that this artist did exactly the right thing, in that moment. If you’re an artist, and you’re working with a producer, you have to be your own best advocate. If something is happening that isn’t resonating with your vision of who you are, then it’s critically important that you speak up. Only through your fastidious curation will you end up with a record that’s the best possible representation of who you are.

My second thought is that this artist could probably have communicated way better with her inspiration tracks, which turned out to be highly misleading. It turned out that what she liked about those tracks was that the acoustic guitar was front and center, and that both singers were husky altos like her. Which is a very different story than the one I’d been ostensibly presented with, given that I specifically had asked to hear songs whose production and sound she found inspiring.

Collaboration is challenging, and fraught with the potential for misunderstanding. Therefore it’s extra important to be as clear as possible with your communication as you enter into a new creative relationship. Get your expectations and hopes clear with yourself before bringing them to someone else, communicate them unambiguously, and you’ll get started off on the right foot.

January 23rd, 2015

January 13th, 2015

Full disclosure: I have an adventurous and wide-ranging sonic palate, as a producer and also as a listener. It’s probably a product of when I grew up. Every song on the radio when I was a kid sounded pretty wildly different from every other song. This was thrilling to ten-year-old me; I spent hundreds of hours transfixed in front of the radio, wondering exactly how each otherworldly combination of sounds had been achieved. It was mind-blowing. Every song – and, by extension, every artist – had a distinct and unique personality, as expressed via its sonic imprint.

That’s a bit of context for today’s observation: I see a phenomenon constantly with up-and-coming artists, wherein they are very concerned with emulating very precisely a particular style or sound or textural palette (or, worst of all, a specific artist). I think a lot of really talented songwriters are doing themselves a huge disservice by taking this approach, and so I want to use my space today to encourage songwriters to embrace a spirit of sonic adventuresomeness, both in their live show and, particularly, in their recordings. Here’s why:

If other people are achieving success with a certain sound, that means that you have less chance of succeeding with that same sound, not more.

I was at a party a couple weeks ago, and I found myself sitting in a group of 5 female singer-songwriters. This can happen in LA. Anyway, I went around and asked everyone what their sound was. Every answer was some variation on “acoustic something or other.”

And you know what? Most likely none of their recordings will be listened to by anyone outside of their small core group of supporters, because a) they’re all making similar-sounding recordings, which b) are going to sound like a bunch of other recordings that are already in the marketplace. Tons of people are making acoustic-based recordings right now; acoustic-based music has been really popular for the last few years. Which means that the marketplace is becoming saturated with recordings that all have essentially the same sound.

This observation is by no means limited to acoustic music. There will always be a market for acoustic music. The point is that when you go to a show and all four artists sound basically the same, they’re cannibalizing each other’s markets. Why would I buy each artist’s EP, if they all sound basically the same? Maybe it’s just me, but I’m always looking for the thing that sets itself apart from the pack. I don’t need a record that sounds like another record I already own.

Or, to put it another way: if an artist says to me “My sound is like Matt Nathanson,” my first thought is, “Oh, I should listen to that new Matt Nathanson record!” Because why would I want to listen to a cheap knockoff of an already-popular artist, when I could just go straight to the source?

Or to put it yet another way: the world doesn’t need another Matt Nathanson. The world already has Matt Nathanson. What the world needs is your unique voice.

I was working with a band last year, and we went through this interesting period where they were trying to insist that they wanted some very specific EDM production flourishes in their recordings – drops and so on – because “that’s what’s on the radio right now.” And I understand the impulse. But if something’s on the radio right now, here’s the thing: it’s already yesterday’s news. Audiences don’t want more of the same – they want what’s next. As an artist, you want to be like a wide receiver. You don’t want to be where the ball is now; you want to be where the ball is going to be. If you’re making a record right now, it will be 3 months minimum before those recordings hits the streets, right? Potentially much longer. And by then all those of-the-moment sounds that you put in your recording will sound badly behind the times. And you don’t want to sound dated, do you?

Also, industry doesn’t want more of what it’s already got. No one at a record label is going to sign someone who sounds exactly like an artist they already have – because they already have the original, and they don’t want to cannibalize their profits.

If you’re thinking of your career like a small business – and you should be – you should be constantly thinking about how to differentiate yourself in a crowded marketplace. What makes your music stand out? A good song isn’t enough. Everyone has a good song or two. What’s going to make people prick up their ears? What’s going to call attention to what you’re doing?

So that’s my thought for the week: I want to encourage you to figure out a way to differentiate yourself sonically in the marketplace. Get a new guitar pedal and figure out a new dimension to your personal sonic landscape. Hell, get a drum machine. There aren’t any rules! Experiment with some synthesizer sounds in GarageBand. Listen to some dub. Expand your horizons. Making electronic music? Experiment with some acoustic textures. It goes both ways. The point is to push your boundaries. Make something interesting and forward-looking and unique.

You probably have a couple of fantastic songs that deserve to be heard on a wider basis – but if your recordings sound the same as a thousand others, they’re not going to stand out. And you want to stand out. Right?

December 19th, 2014

December 12th, 2014

Here’s an outrageous statement: the most full-featured compressor I own cost me less than a decent lunch. Here’s another: it also happens to have my favorite saturator built into it. It’s by a one-man shop in Germany called Klanghelm, and it’s called DC8C. Here’s what I like about this plugin:

- The saturation is GODLY. The “SAT” button might as well be labeled “good” – when it’s engaged, everything just sounds better. I literally do not mix a single song any more without this plugin on the master bus, with this button set to yellow. (It also does red, for more extreme saturation, which I tend not to find myself using.) Even if I’m not using any of the compression features, this still adds some undefinable magic to a mix.

I always make sure to thoroughly A/B master bus treatments, given that they affect everything, and when I’m A/Bing this it’s always like “Why does everything sound so flat and lifeless?” when I bypass it. Then when I click it back on it’s “Ahhhh, there it is.” It makes the whole mix come forward a little bit, and it makes the soundstage wider. And it generally just makes everything a little better, in a way that nothing else I have does.

If you have a vocal that you want to add a little grit and strain to, you can back off the last couple of dB on whatever compressor you’re using and push the signal correspondingly into the DC8C saturation (again, I typically use yellow mode for this). The saturation has a compression characteristic that will take care of those last couple of dB, and it’ll crunch up a bit as it does it. Instant vibe.

- Tilt EQ in the sidechain. Or, to put it in English, there’s a knob you can turn either left or right to make the compressor respond more to the highs or the lows. Got a vocal that’s a little piercing at times? Turn the knob to the right, and the highs will trigger the compressor more. Got a bass guitar that gets a little bottom-heavy at times? Turn the knob to the left. It’s so simple, and so effective.

- Channel separation control in the detection circuit. Normally stereo compressors average out what’s happening on the left side and the right side and base the compression on that. This knob allows you to unlink the left and right channels, or to link them in any percentage from 0-100. Unlinking the left and right channels tends to make the stereo image more expansive, but sometimes at the expense of the center image starting to feel a little unstable and drifty. Most compressors that have a stereo detector control limit it to “linked” versus “unlinked.” Being able to dial in this behavior precisely anywhere in between fully off and fully on allows you to get to just the right place where your stereo signal will breathe more while still retaining a focused center.

- Range limit. What this means is that you can make the compressor stop compressing after it’s compressed a specified number of dB. So, say that you love the aggressive crack of the stick on the snare drum when you compress it 10dB – but it makes the tail end of the drum sound too small. Try setting this knob to somewhere between 2dB and 5dB. You’ll get all that great energy from the beginning of the compression curve – but it won’t suck the life out of the body of the drum.

- Coolest bypass button ever. Click anywhere on the VU meter and it bypasses the plugin – and the meter goes dark. Silly but very fun. Also, on a practical note, the huge target area makes it easy to look away from the screen when doing A/B testing.

There are about 10 other cool features I could get into, and which you should get into – but you get the idea.

November 19th, 2014

October 4th, 2014

I just found an amazing EQ plugin the other day that costs less than $25. It’s made by this little Italian company called Hornet, and it’s called SW34. It’s an analog modeling emulation of the EQ section of some early 80s console – I can’t remember which one offhand, although I know it says on their website if you’re curious.

There are a bunch of things I like about this already. In no particular order:

- Saturation. It’s no secret that I’m a huge fan of saturation, for all sorts of reasons - compression artifacts, non-linear EQ-related effects, general sonic enhancement and/or degradation. The trick with the saturation on this, as far as I can tell, is to run the input solidly into the red. Like, park it in the red.The channel in question will girth right up. It’s a solid state sort of vibe – more chunky than gooey.

- The upper midrange. I was doing an informal master on something for a friend the other day, and I was having a bit of trouble getting the vocal to pop without sounding overbalanced or aggressive. I went through a bunch of EQs, and nothing felt good. Then I put this on the mix, put the upper mid frequency at like 2.5KHz, set the Q to wide, and just nudged the upper mid gain clockwise ever so slightly. I thought I was going to need to go way further than I did. Just a touch of it and the vocal opened up, but without any sort of associated stridency. Just this wonderful presence. I couldn’t have used more than half a dB. I’m not even certain you’re supposed to be putting this on the master bus. It sounded great though.

- Independent in/out buttons for engaging or defeating the saturation emulation – and also the hiss emulation! So many plugins would benefit from this. I get that in order to make a complete and honest emulation, it’s important to include the hiss. I also think that more manufacturers should acknowledge that we don’t always want our mixes covered in hiss, or to have to do hiss mitigation, in service to their 100% accurate emulations. Being able to defeat the hiss and still have the saturation is genius. Or, alternately, being able to have that nice friendly hiss drifting away up there while maintaining the non-saturated integrity of your signal path. All kinds of good options.

- The low end is really tight. Again on that mastering-type situation, I found myself putting the low shelf at like 45Hz and cranking it. The mix I had in front of me was a little skimpy on the low end; no more. But it didn’t get boomy or woofy. Just big.

- Unique highpass filter. 18dB/oct at I think 45Hz? Just high enough to affect only the very bottom end, just tight enough not to have undesirable reciprocal effects in the low mids.